In many systems, hardware-based network traffic managers control the delivery of network packets from an external network, such as the Internet, to one or more hosts within a local network. A DoS attack against a host on a local network attempts to temporarily or permanently disrupt or suspend the services provided by the host, typically by overloading the host with external communications requests. The large volume of network packets arriving at the host reduces the responsiveness of the host or renders the host unable to respond. Other types of DoS attacks consume host resources, disrupt routing tables, communication sessions, physical network components, etc. While hardware-based traffic managers enforce bandwidth regulations to protect hosts within a local network from DoS attacks, these devices introduce undesirable latencies into the processing of network packets.